The Economics of Covid-19 and a Vaccine/Cure
Greetings financial and investment enthusiasts,
We hope this journal reaches you in good health and spirits.
The Vaccine/Cure Dilemma
The Futures Wizard has analyzed an obvious but seemingly overlooked economic factor of finding a vaccine for the covid-19 pandemic. As many of our readers are aware, covid-19 is within a family of other coronaviruses. Pardon the pun here but the most common coronavirus is the common cold.
Importantly, the common cold is not as complex from a molecular structure as Covid-19. This leaves a troubling question from an economic and medical standpoint. We all know that healthcare and the pharmaceuticals are in in business with one another. Pharmaceuticals develop medications that they push on doctors and health care systems who then ultimately recommend them to their patients. Unfortunately, in our society, patients are not painstaking when it comes to the medications they are prescribed. Many patients simply take whatever a doctor prescribes.
Cures for other Coronaviruses
This creates a dilemma that cannot go overlooked and has major economic impact on global health care. Over the counter medications that you find at your local pharmacy are created by the very same companies that develop vaccines. They also develop all other medications that take years of testing before the FDA approves them.
The non-rhetorical question then becomes; when a vaccine is available for Covid-19 why can’t they cure the common cold or at least develop a vaccine that would eliminate its effects? What we have here could potentially be an elaborate fraud on the global community.
Is it believable that a vaccine for a more complicated coronavirus could be developed so swiftly yet a vaccine for the common cold (a less dangerous coronavirus) cannot be. We at The Futures Wizard realize, to a high degree of scientific certainty, that one must follow the other. There is simply no evidence to support that the common cold is in any way a more complicated variation of coronavirus than Covid-19.
Economics versus Health
When this becomes common knowledge, through the dissemination of the irrefutable truth, the matter turns to the economic value of remedies that are sold over the counter to treat the common cold as well as the other healthcare costs of treating patients with the common cold. It also begs the question of why they cannot cure the flu. True, the flu is not a coronavirus. The flu is, however, similar enough to espouse the question of why they cannot produce a vaccine that is far more effective than the ones that presently exist.
We estimate that in the United States alone over 40 billion dollars a year is spent on cold medication and in the treating of ailments associated with it. The Futures Wizard has conducted detailed analysis through reputable sources that the cost of treating the common cold is approaching 100 billion dollars a year globally. These estimates are conservative.
There are also many other costs associated with the flu and the cold which include antibiotics that are ironically utterly ineffectual in treating any virus. These costs add up to over 2 billion dollars a year. These figures to not even include hospital visitations.
Follow the Money
The upshot of this journal is to “follow the money.” The current pandemic is costing a fortune to global commerce. The company that finds a cure or a vaccine is going to make a fortune. That is not the case for the common cold. The common cold is an enormous global money maker and if we add the flu, the cost benefit analysis has to be considered the principle reason there is no effective vaccine for this disease as well.
In this regard, the economic effect of consumer sentiment needs to be considered on a macro scale.
We will close with a somber note on economics versus world health (in other words “money versus lives”). In closing I will frame this in a rhetorical question…
What would happen to the economy if there were a cure for cancer?
Best Regards,
Danny Lebeouf